I was 7 when I joined the Girl Scouts, a second-grade Brownie at Lincoln Elementary School, and what I am about to say is the absolute truth.

I am who I am today because of Girl Scouts.

Of all the influences in my life, the mentors and experiences, the insights and discoveries — aside from family, the land we love and the writing I’ve done — Girl Scouts was it.

Girl Scouts have had the most pronounced effect on my life.

Because of Girl Scouts, I know the strength of a circle of friends. I learned early what teamwork means, and its many variations that transcend sports. I learned it was OK to achieve, an important lesson in the 1950s and '60s when I was coming up, and the message to too many girls at the time was to never do anything to outshine the boys, because they’d feel threatened and not like you if you did.

Susan Harrison Wolffis

I learned inclusion and democracy.

I learned not everyone was like me or had the life I had at home.

I discovered in fifth grade while earning my Animal Badge that I didn’t want to be a veterinarian, after all, that what I really loved was asking questions and learning new things and then writing them down. I learned to identify birds by their calls, to build a bonfire and tie a square knot, to sing songs as if we were one, and yet listen to one another’s voices because no one needs to be drowned out. I learned to make new friends and had no choice but to keep the old, because I loved them.

I knew at an early age that I never, and I repeat, never wanted to use a pit toilet again after our time at camp. The great outdoors was a sanctuary in my life, but outdoor toilets -- not in my future.

I learned to use a jackknife, identify the stars, pick up trash that others left behind because that’s what good citizens do, and that I was terrible at crafts, especially when it came to gluing macaroni to little plaques. Not one of my skills. And dare I ask: Why did we do that anyway?

Knitting was altogether different. My grandmother taught me to knit and embroider when I was in fourth grade, and I earned a badge because of it. I learned how to set a table, dining etiquette and decorum, and while it might seem outdated, it’s served me well in this world. I learned how to cook, a skill my mother and grandmother were already fostering, but I made a meat loaf when earning my cooking badge that my father always called Girl Scout meat loaf. Scouts always got all the credit, even though my grandma got me the cookbook. That was the meat loaf he always wanted, the Girl Scout meat loaf.

And in what probably was the most important thing I learned — more than any skill, more than any fun — I learned there were women who wanted me to succeed; grownups to whom I could talk and confide: my mother, Mrs. Kay, Mrs. Forberg, Mrs. Lind.

By the time I was in high school, I’d earned enough badges and done enough community service projects to earn my Curved Bar, the equivalent of today’s Gold Award. By then, my troop was disbanding. It was the first year or two of high school, and I went on to other things: the school newspaper, choir, student council.

I didn’t know it, but I wasn’t done with Girl Scouts, not by a long shot. After college, when my friends’ daughters were joining Brownies, I volunteered as an assistant leader in two troops. From there, I was asked to be on the board of directors for the Michigan Pine and Dunes Council, now part of Girl Scouts of Shore to Shore.

I tell everyone this, but as much as Girl Scouts meant in my life as a girl — triple that as an adult. What I learned on that board, as board chair, is almost beyond description. One of the major tenets of Girl Scouts is to “build” girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place.

That goes for every adult in the organization, as well.

This past week, Girl Scouts — founded in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low — turned 100 years old, a celebration felt all over the country.

As one of the almost 60 million Girl Scout alumnae in the United States, let me be among those who say on this momentous occasion: I wouldn’t be who I am today without you, as a child or as an adult. Thank you, always Girl Scouts.